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ADDRESS 



DELIVERED ON THE 



SABBATH FOLLOWING THE ASSASSLXATIO]^ 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 



GREENWICH, CONN. 



BY 

KEY. WILLIAM H. H. MUEKAY. 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN" F. TROW, PRINTER, 50 GREENE ST, 

1865. 






t ifiGolnl wa 



Rev. Wm. H. H. Mukray, 

Dear Sie : — At a full meeting of members of the Second Con- 
gregational Society and other citizens, held this day, the undersigned 
were appointed a Committee to request of you a copy of your address 
delivered on the Sabbath following the assassination of Abraham Lin- 
coln, our beloved Chief Magistrate, at Washington. "We take pleasure 
in presenting this request, for we believe the dissemination of the 
sentiments uttered on that occasion will aid in suppressing the spirit 
of rebellion in our land, furthering the ends of justice and securing 
permanent peace for our suffering nation. 

P. BUTTON, 

SANFOKD MEAD, 

WM. SMITH. 
Geeenwich, April 19, 18G5. 



P. BuTTOiT, S. Mead, ^Y. Smith, 

Gentlemex : — In reply to your note, requesting a copy of my ad- 
dress of the 16th, for publication, I would say that if there is a gen- 
eral desire on the part of the public to have what was then said put 
in such a shape as to be preserved, I know of no reason why it should 
not be granted. You are pleased to express the belief that its sen- 
timents recommend it to loyal men, and are such as to influence for 
good the reader. I trust such is the case. Nevertheless, it is but due 
to the writer to observe that he regards it not so much in the light of 
an argument as of a tribute. In it I aimed simply to give expression, 
in suitable language, to popular grief as it then was. The logical co- 
herence of argument, needed to convince men's judgments on other 
occasions, is not to be found or expected here. Looking at it from 
this standpoint, I have not felt at liberty to remodel it, even when by 
so doing it might have been improved. The people arc aware under 
what circumstances it was composed, and I preferred to leave it as it 
was delivered. I have deemed thus much due both to the people and 
myself, to whom, as to you, gentlemen, I am 

Yours truly, 

• W. II. n. MURRAY. 



^^S^^/S 



ADDRESS. 



To-day the wicked trinmpli and the good are brought 
low. Two days ago and the Eepiiblic stood erect, strong 
and reliant, her foot advanced and countenance radiant 
with hope. To-day she lies prostrate upon the ground, 
her features stained with the traces of recent grief, and 
her voice lifted in lamentation. 

"The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places : How are the 
mighty fallen ! " 

President Lincoln is dead. The Chief Magistrate of 
the nation is departed. A good man has left us, and the 
hearts of the people are sad. 

The nation grieves to-day as it has not grieved since 
the first President died. Nay, with a grief more poign- 
ant yet, for Washington lived till he could serve his 
country in public no longer ; but Lincoln is removed at 
a time when it seems impossible to spare him. It is well, 
my friends, that ye have draped* your place of worship ; 
for by so doing, ye sympathize with the public grief, and 
deprecate the judgments of Grod. Let these solemn em- 
blems testify to all, that you obey the Apostolic injunction, 
to "weep with those that w-eep." Let the symbol of 
our nation's glory, as you behold it, crossed with mourn- 
ful black, express, beyond the powers of speech, our sense 
of that nation's loss. Let the unwonted silence of this 
crowded and hushed assembly, the mournful cadence of 
the anthem's solemn voice, the grave expression of every 
thoughtful face, the tears that dim our eyes, be to-day 

* The church had been draped in heavy mourning on Saturday. 



our grief's interpreter, and say wliat words may not; nor 
lips express. For there are times when feelings exceed 
utterance, and spoken syllables, however gently word- 
ed, sound harshly on the ear. 

This is no time to recount the history of the past. Its 
failures and successes call not for recital to-day ; and yet, 
some retrospect is needed to teach us the lessons of the hour. 

On the 4th of March, 1861, Abraham Lincoln took 
the oath of office, at Washington, and was inaugurated 
Chief Magistrate of the country. ' I need not rehearse the 
condition in which the nation then stood. The difficulties 
and embarrassments of the new President's position are 
known to all. On whatever side he turned, he met du- 
plicity and treason. The Capitol stood as on a mine 
ready to be exploded. The train was laid, the match 
was lighted, and all the wicked enginery prepared. 

What chance was there to foil the plotters ? Thirty 
years of corrupt administration, adherence to false prin- 
ciples, and subserviency to designing men, had brought 
the Government to the brink of ruin. An unpardonable 
blindness had fallen on the people. The nation refused 
to credit the danger, though beneath them, as under the 
• crust of a crater, might be heard the rumblings of the 
coming eruption. Though the air was thick with the 
cinders of gathering conflagration, our statesmen refused 
to believe there was peril. Thus, with a traitor at the 
head of every bureau, ajiplying all the resources of the 
nation to forward their base designs, with an incredulity 
in his cabinet, and an apathy among the people, which 
deserved, as they received, the contempt of the world 
— U|,)on the eve of such a tempest, and while the ship was 
already entering the breakers, Abraham Lincoln took the 
helm, and after four years of unremitting effort, with 
the blessing of God upon his endeavors, he had succeeded 
in rescuing it from inuncdiate danger, and was directing 
its course to a safe and permanent haven. 

At the close of the term of his first administration, he 
was again elected to the Presidential office, with a popu- 
lar unanimity which gave an almost unprecedented en- 
dorsement both to his character and the wisdom of his 
policy. 



During all these years, and amid all his trials, he 
bore himself with such becoming dignity, exhibiting such 
steadfast faithfulness, such sincerity of purpose, such free- 
.dom from passion, such reliance on the Divine will, such 
sympathy with the oppressed, that the world grew to re- 
spect and the nation to revere him. His conduct silenced 
his opposers and conciliated his enemies, and the name 
of Abraham Lincoln will pass into history, with a popu- 
lar, unanimity rare to behold, as that of a sincere patriot, 
a wise ruler, and a noble man. 

Alas, that we must proceed ! Why may we not here 
pause ! Why is so hard a duty imposed on me as to de- 
clare, or so painful a task on you as to hear, the awful 
recital of his death ! Last Friday evening, by the hand 
of an assassin, this man, so much beloved, whose life 
seemed so essential to the public weal, was cruelly mur- 
dered — murdered by the very men for whom his voice had 
always pleaded forgiveness. 

There have been assassinations of public men before 
this, but never one so useless. What end was there to 
gain by murdering Lincoln ? What reason can be given 
for this woful waste of precious blood ? I answer, none. 
It was the act of devilish spite^ of blind and fiendish 
hate against the loyal North. The man was nothing save 
as a representative. He was our agent, and as our agent 
he was slain. The selfsame spirit that fired on Sumter 
four years ago, last Friday shot our President. The lesson 
of this event is therefore plain.. None but a knave who will 
not, or a fool who cannot, need fail to understand it. It 
reveals to us the deep depravity and devilish perseverance of 
the men waging war upon the nation's life. Theirs is no 
ordinary hostility — no common enmity. Their hate re- 
sembles the hatred of devils ; it does not reason ; it can- 
not be propitiated. Its motto is " rule or ruin." As a 
people, we have been slow to realize this. Cherishing no 
hatred toward the South, we have refused to be persuad- 
ed that it were otherwise with them. The least reflection 
will show us our error. Remember how surroundings 
make the man. Cruelty comes first by habit, afterward 
by blood. The circumstances of the Southern people have 
made them tyrants. The upas of secession was planted 



6 

by Oalhoun. Assassination is the natural mode of expres- 
sion to uncontrolled yet cowardly passion. To beat wom- 
en and kill men has been the pastime of gentlemen at 
the South for forty years. State statute guaranteed this 
privilege to every man of property and standing. The 
boys were taught to despise the hoe and use the whip. 
Disregard of human life became universal. To stab a 
man was nothing, especially if he was black. Picture 
now such a people, educated into cruelty and revenge by 
years of uncontrolled indulgence ; vain, conceited, malig- 
nant, hating whoever opposed them ; and then picture 
that same people, thwarted as they have been by us at 
the North, beaten by the very ones whose prowess they 
despised, and their bitterness appears at once not only 
possible but natural. We cease to wonder, when we re- 
member these things, at the cruelty practised upon our 
soldiers taken by them in battle. From Jefferson Davis 
down to the hyenas that guarded the pens at Anderson- 
ville, all were filled with fiendish rancor. 

Each soldier in blue was a rejDresentative of that 
North they hated, and on him they wreaked their ven- 
geance. The leaders at Eichmond experienced keen delight, 
as week by week last summer, commandants at the Southern 
prisons forwarded their weeldy reports, how, in obedience 
to orders received from headquarters, the Yankee prisoners 
were being starved to death by the thousand. Ah, what 
a spectacle will heaven and earth behold, when, in obe- 
dience to their last summons, those forty thousand skele- 
ton fonns shall rise from out the trenches where rebel 
hands flung them with cursino- and stand marshalled in 
dread array — an army of witnesses against their mur- 
derers ! Will men in view of this dare say that mercy, 
human or divine, can plead for those who not only did 
this deed, but who, instead of showing repentance, openly 
boast and glory in their guilt ? 

Does the impenitent and boastful sinner find pardon 
at God's hand ? Does He whose throne is built on 
adamantine justice greet with sweet complacency and 
loving favor the men who live to kill ? Is there in 
heavenly judgments no difterence between the innocent 
and the guilty ? Are the rebellious and the loyal re- 



garded in the same light by Him who rewarded Abdiel 
with everlasting glory, hnt bound with chains of fire the 
rebel angels in hell ? And will men so blaspheme and 
wickedly misquote His holy word as to claim that God 
enjoins on men a mercy that He could never practise him- 
self ? Such are not my views of heaven and God. My 
Bible teaches me there is a place of torment for the wicked ; 
and for the good, reward. I believe there is on earth 
a needed imitation of that justice which is above, by 
which society is protected and government upheld. I 
believe that the prison and the scaffold are not cruel, but 
humane establishments, because within their shadow only 
can innocence and unprotected wealth be secure from the 
lawlessness of lust and robbery. And, moreover, I believe, 
and were I alone in the belief, I would maintain it against 
the world — I believe, I say, there is a perceptible difference 
between a law-abiding citizen and a lawless rebel, between 
the man who defends the liberties of his fatherland, and 
those who plot and kill to overthrow them. Pardon I 
plead in God's name for every truly penitent rebel. For- 
giveness for the ignorant masses who knew not what they 
did. But exile or the gibbet for the boastful, persevering 
scoundrels who enjoyed the honors of our Government for 
thirty years, and then turned round and, unjjrovcked, 
waged war upon it. 

If now what I have said, in reference to the leaders of 
this rebellion, be true — and that it is let this draped altar 
and the adornments of solemn black bear witness — what 
is our duty, or the lesson of this death ? Is it not this ? 
That, if our President, thus slain by treason, is removed, 
each man must constitute himself his country's guard. 
Each child of the Kepublic must be her sentinel, and keep 
strict watch and ward. Each citizen must lay aside his 
prejudices, and stand the firmer for the Right. 

But do not so far err as to mistake the author of this 
crime. Do not launch your anger, hissing hot, out on the 
renegade who laced the peril that others dared not face. 
What, pray, is he but the tool of others ? A ivilling tool 
admit, but yet a tool. Think you this poor conspirator, 
who for nearly two long months has been watching his 
opportunity to do this deed, think you he had no backers ? 



AVerc there no other hands to dig the mine his hold act 
fired ? Did this third-rate actor take the destiny of na- 
tions in his hands, and plot a plot to shake the world ? 
Kay, history will not so write it. Behind this miserable 
assassin, this mad agent of cooler heads, stand a throng 
of sympathizers. Over his shoulder you can see a crowd 
of old familiar faces. Davis, BreckiD ridge, Bragg, Lee, 
these are the true assassinators. These are they who 
bribed this hanger-on at theatres to kill the man by 
whose consistent counsels their schemes were steadily 
baffled, and their dream of power delayed. The men who 
sat at Kichmond, and starved our boys at Andersonville 
and Salisbury, have struck the life out of your Presi- 
dent. Months ago, when Davis reigned in Virginia, and 
Lee held his own at Petersburg, this plot was laid.* 
Lincoln and his Cabinet were to be murdered on the 4th 
of March, the country left without a government, and 
inspired by our calamity the Southern leaders were to 
begin the spring campaign. 

Thank God they then were foiled, and he who had 
so nobly borne the cares of office, and watched, through 
all our night of war, with sleepless eye our liberties, was 
spared until the clouds had parted, and the harbor seemed 
not far away. 

But, alas ! the man we love is gone. The Kepublic 
stands as a mother who mourns her eldest son. Others 
she has as brave, others as wise, others perchance as 
true, but of them all what one can fill his place ? — the 
one on whom she leaned in her first trial, who warded oflt' 
the blows rained at her by a savage mob when she lay 
prostrate, who raised her up, built her a fortress, and at 
the portal kept evermore his sleepless watch to thwart the 
throng of Catilines who sought her life, the simple-hearted, 
faithful man. Who can make good her loss .^ Well may 
she be bewildered. The blow came with a suddenness 
that stunned her. She had not dreamed to dress his bier ; 
her thoughts were on his laurels. She asked not where to 
bury, but how to crown him. 

* It should be remembered that this \vas written before any of the 
facts of the conspiracy since ascertained were publi,shed. 



But tliis is not simply a national loss. General terms 
of grief fail to express our feelings. So well was the de- 
parted known, so familiar had his face become to us all, so 
strong was the hold which his honest words and bearing 
had taken on the popular heart, that we each feel a per- 
sonal bereavement. Never before did a President receive 
such an outgoing of confidence and affection from the 
masses. To the rich and poor, to the high and low, he 
was " our President." Never before has our country been 
so profoundly moved. Eyes unused, to weep, were wet as 
at the tidings of a brother's death. Faces unknown to 
grief grew grave. Men met and spoke as men may speak 
beside a bier. Women went to Grod in jn-ayer, and chil- 
dren cried. " How is the mighty fallen, and the weapons 
of war perished ! " 

The universality and sincerity of this grief on the part 
of the people are not to be wondered at ; for he was of 
them. He was no professed statesman. He had not been 
educated into the mysteries and intrigues of statecraft. 
He climbed not to office through the slow and often dubi- 
ous processes of party emolument. He neither intrigued 
for nor expected his nomination. He was not rich. He 
drew no support from the prestige of ancient families or 
renowned names. The nation took him from his village 
home as simple Abraham Lincoln, and placed him in the 
highest seat of power. How well he did fidfil his duty, 
let liistory tell. There have been larger minds than his, 
but few so evenly balanced. There have been greater 
orators than he, but few whose words were more convin- 
cing. There have been men of higher polish, but none so 
thoroughly American. 

He was the child of our free institutions. Born in 
poverty where to be poor was degradation, he climbed to 
knowledge by his own unaided efforts and over obstacles 
which to others would have been insurmountable. In him, 
as in a flower blossomed before its time, do you behold the 
type of a character yet to become national. In no other 
country could he have been what he was. In no other 
country could he have had the experiences and the oppor- 
tunities which fitted him by middle age to be what he has 
been. The Kepublic may justly, therefore, be regarded 



.10 



as botli Ms mother and his patron. She gave him his 
chance to rise. Her institutions^ her maxims, nay her 
rivers, hills, and mighty plains contributed influences 
needed for his growth. In turn he loved her as his dearest 
friend. That love to-day is proven and the greatness of 
it. " For greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friend." This hath he done. To 
him the Rep»ublic gave all that was worthy in his life, and 
with that life his debt of gratitude is paid. 

His advent upon the public stage was an era in our 
history. He brought to our councils firmness without 
bigotry and progression without license. The clearness of 
his judgments and the correctness of his conclusions were 
remarkable. By no labored deductions from the past did 
he arrive at the truths of the present. 

Original and unique, he was wise beyond the wisdom of 
the schools. Born and bred among the masses, he could 
perceive and interpret the movement of the masses. 

He risked nothing on bold inventions of his own. In 
every sense a representative of the people, he advanced no 
faster than the people. The exhibition of personal promi- 
nence he never courted. To others he was always ready 
to ascribe that honor without any reservation, which justly, 
in part, might be claimed by him. If he erred at all, it 
was in a direction in which a leader of parties is not apt 
to err, for such was the goodness of his heart that it is 
doubtful that any consideration, save detriment to the 
public interest, could cause him to refuse a favor though 
solicited by the ill-deserving ; and perchance no public man 
in America has been so maligned and yet so free from bit- 
terness. 

One point there was upon which friend and foe, cham- 
pion and opponent agreed, — the purity of his charac- 
ter and the blamelessness of his private life. These 
passed through the ordeal of two political campaigns 
fiercely contested, not only unscathed, but unattached. 
In the j)lates of this harness there was no flaw. On the 
surface of this shield the keenest scrutiny could detect no 
stain. A faithful husband, an affectionate father, and an 
honest man. 

He was a strong advocate of temperance. No liquor 



11 



touclied liis lips. ToLacco lie never tasted. Of what 
other public man can these things be said ? Who stands 
so free from blemish amid the vices of this age ? Who has 
so long a list of virtues ? I do not doubt he had his 
failings. I do not doubt that he made blunders. To err 
is human. He may have failed to act at times as quickly 
as the people wished or as was best. We do not claim 
for him perfection. But consider against what he had to 
contend, the difficulties of his station, the character of his 
agents, the confusion of the times. Kun back in memory 
along the line of history for the past -four years, and see 
how seldom he has erred, how few have been his extrava- 
gancies, how successful, judged by popular indorsement, 
have been his measures, how he has grown not only in our 
confidence, but in the respect of foreign nations. Within 
the past two months, orators of the Old World have pro- 
nounced him " the wonderful man of the New." Their 
hostile press at last has recognized i\\Q greatness of 
one whose magnanimity disarmed their prejudice and 
broke the weapons of their enmity ; and even the council 
chambers of Europe, where sit the haughty managers of 
empires, have spoken with respect the name of him whose 
o;reatness was not derived " from loins enthroned or rulers 
of the earth."' 

But neither at home or abroad, by friend or foe, will 
his name be spoken again save as of one departed. In 
the prime of life, in the midst of his honors, in the full 
measure of health, he is snatched away. The means and 
manner of his death are known to all. I need not repeat 
the fearful story. Many of us have feared that the bur- 
den of public care would prove too much for his strength 
and that his health would break down under it, but none 
of us anticipated what has occurred. Could he have gone 
to his grave in the order of nature, could friends have 
watched beside his bed and soothed the pains of dissolving 
mortality, could he have breathed his life away in peace 
and left before he departed tokens of love to friends and 
words of counsel to his country, how different would have 
been our feeling ! Then had we been to some degree pre- 
pared. Or could he have lived yet for a little while, until 
by his wise management the troubles of our country had 



12 



been quieted, and that liappy hour arrived for which he 
lon2;ed and labored, when the authority of the Government 
shall be everywhere respected and peace secured, then 
might w^e have surrendered him, as one who lived his time 
and finished his full course. But that he should be 
stricken dowm in his full vigor, without a moment's warn- 
ing, while in the midst of his labors, depriving him of that 
reward so richly deserved, the gratitude of an united and 
grateful people, this indeed is hard. This is the bitter- 
ness of our bitter grief. But God is wise. He orders all, 
and He orders what is best. The wicked deed of wicked 
men He shall overrule for their confusion and our good. 
Let us not, therefore, too deeply mourn that Lincoln is 
departed. He might have gone with more, but never with 
greener laurels, to the grave. His wreath is woven, and 
well w^oven too, both flower and leaf. He lived at least 
lonor enouo;h to know that his labors were not in vain or 
unappreciated. He lived to see our arms victorious and 
the cause of liberty secure. He lived to make his peace 
with God, and leave to a stricken people the sweetest of 
all consolations. 

Nor is he wholly gone. He lives ; not in bodily pres- 
ence, but yet he lives — in the history of his times — in the 
memory of his age — in the aftections of us all. His is a 
name that will not be forgotten. The living of to-day will 
tell it to the unborn, and they in turn w^ill rejieat it to the 
remotest age. 

Amid the doings of the great of every clime will his 
deeds be recorded. Among the teachings of the wise will 
his sayings be written. In galleries, wdiere wealth gathers 
the faces of the loved and the renowned, will his portrait 
be suspended, and in humbler homes and in lowlier hearts 
will his face and his memory be retained till the present 
has become the past, and the children cease to be moved 
by the traditions of the fathers. We cannot measure him 
to-day. Years must pass before his influence on his age can 
be estimated. It needs the contrast of history to reveal 
his greatness. It is only when some future Tacitus shall 
compare him, as the Roman did Agricola, with the 
emperors and kings of his day, that his meed can be 
awarded. Beside the Napoleons and Victorias of his age 



13 



will lie not stand colossal ? In native vigor of intellect, 
in tlie sincerity of his purpose, in the originality of his 
views, in the simplicity of his faith, and in his sympathy 
for the oppressed, what potentate of his time will bear a 
comparison with this backwoodsman of America ? Un- 
taught in the formalities of courts, he aped not their cus- 
toms. Unostentatious, he aspired to nothing beyond his 
reach, and seemed to reach more than he aspired after. 
He was incapable of bitterness, and in this doth his great- 
ness most appear, that having defamers he heeded them 
not, persecuted by enemies he hated them not, reviled by 
inferiors he retorted not. 

But here I feel as though I must pause. Our grief, 
great as it is, is lost beside a larger woe. A million 
dusky faces rise up before me aghast with terror. The 
poor down-trodden slave, the lone and wretched bondman, 
upon whose swarthy 1 ips, whether quivering beneath the 
torture of the lash or parted in the ecstasy of prayer, one 
name was ever found — that name, the man's that's gone. 
Who shall make good his place to him ? The freedmen 
too — who shall be Abraham Lincoln unto them ? Through 
all this weary struggle that name has been treasured in 
their hearts. To these abused and cheated ones, whose 
only crime has been their color, he seemed a saviour". An 
undefined yet holy sympathy has linked them unto the 
sympathetic man. In him, with faith that may prove 
prophecy, they thought they saw the " Coming of the 
Lord." And now their Friend is gone. Their star, while 
yet in full meridian, is suddenly extinguished in the 
heavens. What lamentations will ascend o'er all the 
South as this news liies ! The white aud the black will 
mourn together for once. Their long-lost brotherhood 
is found at last in grief. 

My friends, here will we pause. I have attempted to ex- 
press the public grief, but I have found it beyond ex- 
pression. The solemn-sounding organ, the mournful 
tolling of the bell, this funeral drapery, these outward 
badges of an inward woe can alone make known our sor- 
row. Dumb and mute though they be, yet by such 



14 



manifestations does the o'erburdened heart declare its 
bereavement, and find relief. 

From this house, impressed by these surroundings, let 
us go forth relying on God for strength and guidance in 
the days to come. Do not despair. Be not despondent. 
The Kepublic must never fall into the hands of traitors. 
Concession avails not in times like these, and with despe- 
rate men. 

Act your part like men, too brave to be subdued, too 
wise to be cajoled. 

By the memory of your fathers, with whose blood 
American liberty was first purchased, by the sufferings of 
your sons, slain while fighting that it might be preserved, 
by the lifeless body of your murdered President, killed by 
the instigations of public enemies, I charge you not to give 
o'er this contest till you have vindicated your right to 
manhood, and fenced the future round and secured it 
against treason and assassination in all time to come, if it 
must needs be, with a wall of gibbets. May God stay the 
necessity of the further shedding of blood ! I pray to-day 
as I always have, that the mind of our enemy may be 
changed, that remorse may visit their hearts, that they 
may see their errors and repent. But if this is hot to be, 
if they persist and yield only when successful resistance is 
no longer jiossible, if their repentance is that of a captured 
assassin and not of a returning prodigal, then, I say, let 
justice, with face like granite and sword of fire, have full 
and freest sweep. Leave not a single man to break the 
laws or murder Presidents hereafter. And those proud 
palaces and broad plantations, builded and tilled by the 
unrequited toil of those who since have died in our behalf, 
let these, I say, be taken from their unworthy owners and 
given to men and the children of men who have fought 
and laid down their lives for liberty and law. Mercy to a 
few is at this time cruelty to the many. Anarchy must 
not be risked to gratify a questionable charity. 

Let us therefore give unto him .who by this death has 
legally become the nation's head, not merely obedience, 
which is our bounden duty, but our sympathies and our 
prayers. Like Lincoln when he was first inaugurated, he 
is an untried man. Like him, he is a self-made man. 



15 



Like him, he may become the honored man. Let us not 
forget, in the remembrance of how he once did fall, how 
much the nation owes him for long years of loyal service. 
Let us heed the advice of him whose lips will never more 
utter their homely wisdom, when he said, after his inaugu- 
ration, to a gentleman who was alluding to the Vice- 
President's painful condition ! " Sir, Andrew Johnson is 
too much of a man for the American people to throW' 
overboard for one error." 

God grant his estimation of the man may be the true 
one, and unto us may He give wisdom to know and hearts 
to do our duty, and in the fulness of time unto the rulers 
purity, and to the nation peace. 

Farewell, thou martyred hero. The days will pass, 
these tokens of our grief will be removed ; but never from 
our history will the memory of him we mourn be taken. 
His name will grow in honor with the years. The future 
will bring their garlands to his grave and garnish his sep~. 
ulchre. Of him will songs be written and eulogies be 
made. A grateful people shall testify their gratitude in 
fnarble o'er his mound, and on it carve his greatness and 
their love. The fashion of his features, faithfully shaped 
in bronze, shall endure unto all ages : 

" For thoii art Freedom's now, and Fame's ; 
One of the few, the immortal names 
That were not born to die." 

But while we mourn our loss, let us not forget those 
who mourn a greater. The wife, the mother of his boys 
— what is our grief to hers ? Or those who bear his name, 
and found in him their guide — who to them shall fill a 
father's place ? 

Pray, ye who love the Lord and pity the bereaved, 
pray that God will be a husband to the widow, and a 
father to the fatherless. For them v;e plead the consola- 
tions of the Gospels. For them our prayers ascend. God 
grant them peace beyond the giving of the world, and 
teach them in faith to bow with us and say, " the Lord 
gave, and the Lord taketh away ; blessed be the name of 
the Lord." 



APR 15 1907 



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